Thursday music spot: Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G minor BWV 542



A truly magnificent performance by Gregory Lloyd of one of the best of J.S. Bach's organ works, one of several of his compositions which are sometimes described as "The Great."

I do have a confession with respect to this piece however.

Someone once described an intellectual as a person who can listen to the Overture to Rossini's "William Tell" opera without thinking of "The Lone Ranger."

I used to be able to do that, though after I read the comment I have usually been unable to listen to it without remembering the quote itself.

What I've never been able to do is listen to the third movement of Mozart's 4th Horn Concerto without remembering the song "Ill Wind"  which Flanders and Swann set to that music.

And whenever I hear the Fugue theme of Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (it is heard for the first time 7 minutes and 27 seconds into the above performance) I remember some lyrics which were once set to that theme by a group of music students, about musician and academic called Ebenezer Prout who is best known for arranging and cataloging the works of Bach:

"O Ebenezer Prout, you are a clever man,

For you make Bach fugues as easy as you can,

For you make Bach fugues as easy as you ca - a - a - a - an!"

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